


felled for to fight the cold

by cori_the_bloody



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Genre: Episode: s03e10 Oh Nathaniel It's On!, F/M, One Shot, nothing explicit happens but rated T because they're horny idiots always
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25992325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cori_the_bloody/pseuds/cori_the_bloody
Summary: It’s possible that Rebecca didn’t think through her decision to move herself into Nathaniel’s office.
Relationships: Rebecca Bunch/Nathaniel Plimpton
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27
Collections: Rethaniel Appreciation Week





	felled for to fight the cold

**Author's Note:**

> A million thank yous to Bethany and her quick turnaround!
> 
> This is for Rethaniel Appreciation Week 2020, day three - friction.

“Stop that!” Rebecca feels her anger get the better of her, like an abused match finally catching fire. “The clicking is like water torture!”

It’s possible that she didn’t think through her decision to move herself into Nathaniel’s office, what with her being hopped up on hormones and him simmering in resentment.

And, given that this is approximately the millionth time she’s had this thought since the start of the week, it may be time to upgrade that _possible_ to a _probable_.

“Four minutes and twenty seconds,” Nathaniel replies. Mercifully, he does set down his pen, but that’s of little solace when he’s using his Patronizing Man voice.

She blinks furiously.

He takes that for the question it is. “That’s how long it took you to break. Yesterday it was almost a full five.”

“So?”

“So,” he says, wheeling back from his desk and folding his hands over his stomach. The gesture is entirely too self-satisfied, and Rebecca wishes—not for the first time—that her legs were long enough to allow her to kick him in the crotch from over here. “I’ve done the math. At this rate of deterioration, I’ll drive you out of the office in just under two weeks.”

“You think you can annoy me— _me,_ of all people—out of here?”

He shrugs. “I do so enjoy a challenge.”

She flips him the bird as she turns her attention back to her work.

A second later, the pen clicking starts up again.

She grits her teeth.

###

Eventually, Nathaniel gets so engrossed in his own work, he forgets to be unconscionably annoying.

Rebecca wishes she could just relax and enjoy the quiet, but she can’t help feeling as though there’s an ominous pressure to it. There is no such thing as a companionable silence between them these days.

Just when she’s about to say something stupid and inflammatory, her laptop pings with the arrival of an email—a client requesting a meeting—and she reaches for her stack of post-it notes, about to leave herself a reminder. Her little post-it holder has nothing to offer her, though.

Nathaniel glances up when she pushes to her feet.

“I’m not _leaving_ leaving,” she tells him with a sneer. “Just going to the supply closet.”

He makes a show of rolling his eyes.

She’s shuffling through the available colors when she feels someone behind her.

“Needed binder clips,” Nathaniel says, his voice low as he reaches over her head.

She closes her eyes, letting that heady _Nathaniel_ feeling wash over her even as the angel of her better nature wishes the chemicals in her body weren’t as compatible with the chemicals in his as they clearly are.

And the part of her that’s hormonal as hell and already so damn tired of denying herself the things she wants just because her own emotions don’t know how to set boundaries? Well, it might as well be teaching a chemistry class for how eager she is to demonstrate the utility of chemical reactions.

“I’ve never seen anyone agonize so much over the color of paper,” he says, stepping back.

That should be enough to break the spell, but she’s been stewing in this liminal space for a full week now.

She spins around, and something in her expression sends Nathaniel’s jaw slackening, his pupils dilating.

It would be so easy, and she can see the scene playing out in her head. He’d lean down to meet her, she knows he would. He’d kick the door closed. He’d pull her up into his arms.

“Too much,” she says, mostly to herself. And then she bolts from the room.

###

“You’ve been gone awhile.” Nathaniel’s voice is deceptively nonchalant as she reenters the room. His eyes, on the other hand, are picking apart her expression as she resumes the seat at her desk.

She rolls her shoulders back, trying to ignore the way it makes her feel like he’s peeling off her clothes.

_We just took care of this_ , she reminds herself.

Feeling as annoyed with herself as she is with him, Rebecca shoots back the most petulant response she can think of. “I was pooping, Plimpton. Gonna write me up? Oh, wait, you can’t. I’m the boss now.”

He barely even flinches at the mention of poop anymore. Damn him.

“Paula checked,” he says, smoothing his distaste into a smug grin. “Besides, if that were really the case, you’d have announced it to the office, warned them to enter the bathroom at their own risk.”

She scowls. “Fine. I was masturbating in the first-floor restroom. Is that what you want me to say?”

He raises his eyebrows. “Yes, I know. That was the whole point of me goading you.”

“Great,” she says, waking up her laptop.The email is still open on the screen. “Next time I’ll skip the song and dance and just do it in here.”

“You wouldn’t,” he says, sounding like he knows she would.

She waggles her eyebrows. “Try me.”

He gawps for a moment, and she doesn’t think it’s too much of a stretch to assume he’s picturing the scenario; that _is_ his hot and bothered face. She sits up straighter in her chair, a thrill dragging itself down the back of her neck.

“I’ll get George to file a sexual-harassment complaint,” he says after a beat too long.

“Please,” she says, waving that away. “He’s way more freaked out by me than he is by you. Especially thanks to the potent cocktail of volatile hormones in my bloodstream.”

Nathaniel swears under his breath. “Hormonal Rebecca ruins everything.”

“Ah-ah-ah.” She wags a chastising finger at him. “If that were true, she wouldn’t be one of the partners of this firm.”

His jaw tenses. She wonders if he’ll still have molars by the end of this.

“Just—we’ve wasted enough time today. Can we please focus on work?”

“Gladly.”

A moment later, though, she stands up.

“What is it this time?” he asks.

“I, uh.” She flushes. “I never actually got those post-its I needed.”

He breaks eye contact with her, nudging a pad of pink notes across the lip of his desk and onto hers with his pen.

“Oh,” she says, sitting back down. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he says.

A fond smile tickles at the corners of her lips.

It’s possible that she didn’t think through her decision to move herself into Nathaniel’s office.

It’s probable that, even if she had, she’d have done it anyway.


End file.
